Market opening: NIFTY50 opens at 26,181, SENSEX rises 130 pts as auto, metal stocks rally; Hindalco Industries, Jio Financial top gainers

The Indian stock market opened higher on Friday, January 2, supported by gains in auto and metal stocks and positive cues from the Asian peers.

The broader market was trading higher in early deals, with the Nifty Midcap 100 gaining 0.33% and the Nifty Smallcap 100 advancing 0.24%.

Among sectors, except for Nifty FMCG (-1.27%) and Nifty Pharma (-0.23%), all the other gauges were in green. Nifty Auto took the lead among gainers, rising 0.88%, followed by Nifty Metal (0.78%) and Nifty PSU Bank (0.77%).

Meanwhile, shares of cigarette and tobacco manufacturers, such as ITC Ltd, Godfrey Phillips, and VST Industries, continued their downtrend for the second straight session following a massive sell-off in the previous session, given the imposition of additional excise duty.

According to exchange data, on Thursday, the foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold shares worth ₹3,268.60 crore, while the domestic institutional investors (DIIs) bought equities worth ₹1,525.89 crore on a net basis.

Globally, most of the Asian stocks were trading higher, with Hong Kong and South Korea leading gains, while the Japan and China markets remained closed on account of the new year.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng advanced 2.29%, South Korea's KOSPI surged 1.59%, and Singapore's Straits Times was trading 0.44% higher.

Wall Street remained closed for operations on Thursday.

As many as 2,690 stocks traded on the NSE during the early session, among which 1,588 advanced, 1,028 declined, and 74 shares remained unchanged.

This indicates that the market's breadth is in favour of advances.

Meanwhile, 58 stocks hit their one-year highs in the early trade, while 24 stocks touched their 52-week lows.

Further, 33 stocks hit their upper circuits, while 21 hit their lower circuits.

India VIX, the volatility gauge, was trading at 9.22 levels, rising 0.4%.

As many as 36 stocks advanced, while 14 were trading lower in the opening session on the NIFTY50 index.

Hindalco Industries was the most contributing stock, climbing 1.35%, followed by Jio Financial Services (1.32%), Asian Paints (1.28%), Maruti Suzuki (1.27%) and Bharat Electronics (1.04%).

On the flip side, ITC (-3.88%), Dr Reddy’s (-1.23%), Titan Company (-1.11%), Bajaj Auto (-0.58%) and Tata Consumer Products (-0.5%) were the biggest laggards on the 50-share index.